Power Struggle
Improving the energy dialogue in Canada (and beyond) through honest, non-partisan, and fact- based conversations.
The energy conversation is personal: it’s in our homes, in our hands, and now, it’s in our ears. Power Struggle invites you to listen in on honest, non-partisan, and fact-based conversations between host Stewart Muir and the leaders and thinkers designing modern energy.
Watch videos at https://www.youtube.com/@PowerStrugglePod
Power Struggle
Is Canada Ready to Lead in Both Tech and Resources?
In this episode of Power Struggle, Stewart Muir is joined by Nicole Brossard, Vice President for BC at Global Public Affairs, for a candid and far-reaching conversation about one of Canada’s biggest missed opportunities: the false divide between technology and natural resources.
From her deep experience in federal politics, public affairs, and economic development, Brossard challenges the outdated narrative that Canada must choose between innovation and extraction — and shows how integrating tech with resource industries is already driving solutions across climate, labour, and investment.
They discuss:
- Why government silos are stalling innovation.
- How foreign investment is slipping away — and what to do about it.
- The role of First Nations in reshaping project development.
- What the post-secondary system must fix before AI changes everything.
- And why Canada can’t afford to keep punching below its weight.
This isn’t just a debate about policy — it’s about building a smarter, stronger future.
Watch now to explore how Canada can break free from its false binaries — and finally start competing on the world stage.
The energy conversation is polarizing. But the reality is multidimensional. Get the full story with host Stewart Muir.
Reach out to us with thoughts, questions, or ideas at info@powerstruggle.ca
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Video available on Power Struggle’s YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/@PowerStrugglePod
We love chaos. As much as uh Canadians seem to hate elections and really only decide who they're voting for uh when they roll up to the ballot box, it's uh we really love our unstable government.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, I'm Stuart Muir. Welcome to Power Struggle. Today we're joined by Nicole Brassard, Vice President for British Columbia at Global Public Affairs, one of the country's most experienced policy voices at the crossroads of politics, business, and innovation. You've seen her on TV. For years, the story in Canada has been framed as a tug of war. Tech versus resources, progress versus tradition, a moral debate. Nicole says that's the wrong frame. The real opportunity lies in integration, not competition. She's spent over 15 years inside the system, election campaigns, policy rooms, industry files, seeing firsthand how decisions made in Ottawa and our other capitals ripple out to local communities across the country and through the industries that keep this country running. So today we're talking about how technology and natural resources can grow together and what it'll take for Canada to stop punching below its weight. Welcome, Nicole.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much. That was quite the intro. I should have you do all of these for me. That was lovely.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, you've been busy for the last few years, haven't you?
SPEAKER_02:I've been very busy, and we keep running into election campaigns. So every time I think I get a break, there's another election around the corner, and I'm running straight flat out for 36 days, and uh then there's a leadership, and then we actually have to govern. So it's been a little busy.
SPEAKER_00:And with the taste for minority governments that Canadians seem to have developed, maybe we're getting a little more cadence to that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, now we love chaos. As much as uh Canadians seem to hate elections and really only decide who they're voting for uh when they roll up to the ballot box, it's uh we really love our unstable government. So across the board, it's been a really fun time for us.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell It has been. And you know, we could probably sit here for hours on dozens, maybe hundreds of issues and have a really great discussion. But in the interest of sticking to our theme at power struggle, that we're looking at ever increasing and intense competition that humans have to get the energy they need to power their lives, what are the struggles there? Political, physical struggles, all of that. And in this interest, you know, you published something recently I was instantly intrigued by when I saw it in the Vancouver Tech Journal. And you talk about this stuff too in other places, and I was struck by a term, the false binary. And this is where we've created this divide between technology like the future and resources as the past. Let's talk about that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, British Columbia has this um this tug of war, as we're talking about, between our traditional kind of resource economy and what drives uh what drives growth here in the province. And then kind of like the downtown Vancouver tech provides where we just we don't have a lot of head offices, but we have a lot of innovation happening that really does support uh our resource sector in a number of ways. And it is never really talked about that way. Um I think industry gets it. Industry is utilizing uh tech across the board, whether it's in forestry or in mining. Um, and that's a huge part of how they are being more efficient and innovative and uh and finding returns. Um, it's just not talked about in the way that it needs to, and maybe the hallways of the legislature.
SPEAKER_00:Now, if you go through downtown Vancouver where we're sitting, you go into any office building, you look at who's in that building, or you go up to a few floors, what are you gonna find?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you're gonna find a resource company, and then you're gonna find maybe an AI company, and you're probably also gonna find an insurance company and a law firm.
SPEAKER_00:And the insurance company is issuing coverage for the mining company, and the AI is probably working for some company that does something physical in the real world.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it all is one in a sense, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Powell Yeah, it really is.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell, so to say it's a binary that they're opposed. Uh where does it come from and what purpose does that binary serve for anyone who maybe sees it as a as a way to gain the thing they're trying to get more of, whatever that is, votes or power or money.
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Powell Yeah. Everybody wants to be the shiny toy, I think, in the eyes of government. And so um and everybody thinks what they're doing is the most important thing. There has been for a really long time associations maybe that have uh been in the tech industry that have really pushed this narrative of their GDP growth versus our GDP growth. And it has been a little bit unhelpful. Um and I also think that in the regions where this innovation is happening, um, that hasn't trickled down, and maybe those stories aren't being told in the way that they need to be, um, to ensure that British Columbians and and Victoria has a greater under understanding of where that's taking place and where we can be investing more in order to grow our economy.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:I've at times had a sneaking suspicion that innovation technology is is used as this um as this lever to get people not talking about the things that they consume and use in their daily life and that Canada kind of earns its living shipping it to the world, producing it responsibly, extracting it, moving it, and then shipping it to the world. That innovation is this alternative door. We we don't go through that door. And I I'm just intrigued in how we can undo that because I think most people who watch power struggle are uh familiar with the policies, they've got life experience, they've got uh a sense of how the world really works, as Vaslav Smiel uh titled one of his books. Um I think what we're all looking for is how do we change that? And I think that since you're advising um people with these problems in your work every day, like what what is the advice you give?
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Powell It's coming to the table together, to be honest.
SPEAKER_00:Um like even with people you might disagree with coming together in that sense?
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Powell Coming together with people yeah, maybe that you disagree with to have these conversations, but then also a lot of my job in in engaging with government at all levels is um is almost being a translator and also being able to explain to governments across the board uh the value proposition of both of these industries and the innovation that's happening, um, and to highlight for governments where there's opportunity. It is it is often a widely held view that it's government's job to push down on industry in terms of what needs to happen. But increasingly, we're finding a lot more benefit in coming to government with really solid ideas about how to work together. Um, and so coming to the table with uh an AI company and a forestry company to sit down to explain to government how this is working, I think is really impactful. Government is so siloed all of the time. I think anybody watching this podcast will recognize a time where they um were asking one minister for something and told to go to another minister, but neither of those ministers talked to each other. And so really helping be that translator for government as well to make those connections. Um, so you're not just um kind of having the same conversation over and over again, um, which does need to happen, but we want to bring everybody to the table to help solve some of these. Um, a really good example of this is there is uh a tech company that has a founder on the North Shore. They could not pass the regulatory hurdles here in British Columbia in order to operate. And so they actually went to the states to launch and have been operating in California for years. They still really want to operate here and they want to come home. Um, but the challenges with that tech company have been uh having governments sit down and talk to each other and just for someone to say yes, we get caught in this kind of um uh decision fatigue uh at the public service sometimes and even at the ministerial level. And so bringing everybody around the table to have these discussions and just get to yes is so critical.
SPEAKER_00:And when you see some of the uh companies coming forward, what what uh causes the politicians, the bureaucrats you're dealing with to lean forward and say, tell me more about this? Like what are some of the technologies, some of the innovations that are most exciting when you're talking about, I mean, you want regulatory relief, you want an operating uh atmosphere. What is more effective?
SPEAKER_02:Well, when we're we're talking about people coming to the table and having these discussions too, um, I think it's really important to be very clear about what it is you're trying to achieve. Um, making it tying it to government's mandate is incredibly important. And as we look forward in this province and our deficit situation, how are you going to grow the pie for this province through some of this innovation and the work that you're doing together in order to unlock other conversations or funding or some of that regulatory dwell that's causing the challenges for us to move forward on both the innovation side and on the natural resource side? We keep talking about upskilling and micro-credentials for folks that are like leaving the forestry sector or mill closes, and like what are we just gonna upskill these people into like coding? Like there's just there also seems to be a bit of a disconnect sometimes in terms of how we're solving these challenges. Um, AI is not going to replace everything, and innovation is not gonna replace everything and take everybody's jobs. There's a real um collaboration that's happening that are making these industries more efficient and making them more viable at the same time.
SPEAKER_00:Now, in our system, it seems like the the biggest agent of change is when people vote, whether it's a sea change in politics or just the local um chessboard changes because you've got uh uh new people coming in. Um in recent times, I mean here we are getting towards the end of 2025 as we sit here. So, Nicole, what's the biggest tension in politics that you're seeing right now? Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_02:The big biggest tension that I find is how governments are working together. So whether it's us with Trump and the states, or that's how our provincial and territorial governments are working with the federal government as well. We've talked a lot about defense funding that is coming down from the federal government, and it feels like everybody is struggling to figure out uh where they can find these dual use projects that can extract some of those federal dollars to fund our major projects and some of the infrastructure that's necessary for British Columbia. Um, that layered on with municipal governments as well, and everybody's going through an election at a different time and has different inflection points of when they need to talk to voters and lay out their case for why they should be re-elected. And so there's been a lot of tension in driving real results while being able to have open conversations.
SPEAKER_00:Nicole, you mentioned major projects. There's been a consistent trend in all the polling that I've seen recently of Canadians in general, British Columbians for sure, they are at historic high levels of support for propositions like a new oil pipeline to the Pacific.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Um Do you think that's real? Do you think it's it's lasting and and do you think it will result in said infrastructure materializing?
SPEAKER_02:Oil pipeline depends on who you talk to uh and in what province. Uh compared to Daniel Smith, compared to uh David Eve, very different views on an oil and gas pipeline to the coast.
SPEAKER_01:That's for sure.
SPEAKER_02:Uh and even this week we saw uh a couple of announcements from the premier on on taker band. So there's been a lot of um a lot said about that. Um yeah, it's an interesting one.
SPEAKER_00:When it comes to that high level, um it's it's been a trend. Uh, you know, when you when you saw major projects in the middle of permitting, suddenly there's a lot of social noise. It's in the media. You've got these extreme polarizations, and that's when it feels like the tech versus, you know, the tech is the future, uh, resources are the past, that that's when that narrative seems to be at its most potent. Agree or disagree?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I I disagree a little bit. Um I think everybody has an understanding that major projects mean shovels in the ground, but they also mean innovation. And so when we're thinking about um the Messi Tunnel, for example, as a major project that needs still some federal funding, but as a priority project for this province, we're really thinking about um uh a really transformative project for this province, that it requires a huge amount of technical expertise and knowledge that um will only build our capacity here in British Columbia to do immersive tunnel projects. That's not a skill that is normal to British Columbia. We don't do a lot of these major projects. And so I think reframing the conversation around major projects that are just not oil and gas pipelines, these major projects that need to occur in British Columbia to move our goods and to support our economy aren't just that. There's a whole suite of other expertise that goes into delivering these major projects. So we always joke on the Build Canada Homes file. Um, you can build as much housing as you want, but if you can't flush a toilet, that's a whole different problem. And so um I want to move that conversation around major projects away from just shovels in the ground to all of the other support that's needed to make these projects come to fruition.
SPEAKER_00:The last couple of decades we've seen globally as well as here in Canada this move toward ESG investing, towards the climate policy being enhanced and brought to a high level of detail. But suddenly in 2025, I see the Norwegian sovereign fund has said, you know what, we were insisting that our fund not invest in fossil fuel investment. We've decided we're actually gonna take away that. We're we're we're gonna be able to invest in whatever we want to. It just has to make money. Um but that's only one example. You know, the the group that Prime Minister Carney was involved in, banking and climate, has not only failed to gain traction, it it's actually been disbanded. And continuing improvement in climate performance here in Canada, we've seen the oil sands lower their emissions intensity. You've seen in the natural gas sector in British Columbia, I'm more familiar with BC figures, the the methane emissions issues, they've been showing results. They brought those results uh, you know, to public, to government. I think there's recognition, the the NDP government in BC is saying, well, we should do more LNG then. You guys are you know doing pretty good. Um so so what's what's going on? There's there's two trends. There's a retreat from some of the rhetoric, if you will, but there's also performance through applying technology, maybe.
SPEAKER_02:I think I'm gonna mention the federal budget, because that's kind of topical uh for the two of us here today and this week. Um there's been a lot of criticism of the federal government for maybe walking back some of the climate policy that was. The emissions cap. Like the emissions cap and um and a lot that was put in into place under Justin Trudeau over the last 10 years. Um we've heard a lot from industry, and I say we, we as royal, we as a liberal government have heard a lot from industry in terms of where the restrictions have been in place and um how it's been difficult to attract foreign direct investment and get your project across the line because of those caps. Um I think we've seen a recognition from the the federal government that says, okay, uh we'll take them away, but now it's on you. Now you have to figure out how to get your project, how to get pathways to fruition while still meeting these targets that we would like for you to hit. And you say you can do it if we take a step back. And so I think that'll be a really interesting hinge point, if I can quote the prime minister, um, to see how can these projects move forward and can industry move these projects forward um without uh the oil and gas caps and without emission caps like uh over top of them? And so I think it's a really interesting time. Will that allow development to uh to increase? I think so. Um but everybody's watching now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they sure are. So we'll find out. I mean, this week was the 2025 budget delivered in the month of November 2025, and so it it's uh Carney's first chance to be seen for the world. Does he have the chops to be uh effective as Prime Minister? Do you think he does?
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah, that's a hard yes for me. I have so much confidence in that man. Um I will couch all my comments by saying, like, I worked on his leadership and then also on the on the campaign. Okay, so there's a little bit of um a little bit of bias, and I worked for the party for years and um and currently the vice chair for the party. So still deeply embedded in in everything that's that's taking place over in Ottawa. Um but he is really, you've seen reflected in the budget and in all the communications, like he really understands business, even switching the timing of the budget to the fall session uh better aligns with how folks are planning their own budgets and their investment priorities. And so there has been a significant amount of signals from the federal government. I think there's a trillion dollars of investment being rolled out by the federal government to support major projects. Um but that also is required to attract foreign direct investment and make Canada a very stable and safe place to invest. And so I'm really looking forward to seeing how that unfolds and how we continue to roll out major projects across the country, and not just major projects, but everything we're doing.
SPEAKER_00:Now the scale of it is mind-boggling. It is. Only a week before the budget, there was a pre-budget speech where the Prime Minister said something I thought was quite interesting. It was that for the uh exports that go to non-U.S. destinations now, which is a small part of our exports because the U.S. is our largest uh trading partner, uh, he wants to double that in a decade, right? And that means twice as much LNG, or probably in the case of LNG, maybe even more than twice as much, but twice as much what, uh, soybeans and and coal and copper concentrate and all of these uh many other products, most of which, you know, goods exports from Canada are predominantly natural resource derived. So is it just impossible to achieve that?
SPEAKER_02:I think it's entirely possible because that man would not have said that if he hadn't already done the numbers and known that it was possible. Um we haven't talked a lot about critical minerals today, but that's a key piece, I think, um, for Canada and an opportunity for us to really step up into the world stage and supply uh the world what it needs. We have a kind of a we put a lot of barriers in place to developing our natural resources in a sustainable way. And so I'm really looking forward to um kind of opening the floodgates and allowing that development to happen in a sustainable way. Yeah, it's a it's a fun time right now.
SPEAKER_00:Now, with LNG, that's accepted by the BC government. They're applauding that. And since the BC government has control of the upstream, yeah, that's in northeast BC with the Mont Nee Shale, and then they've got the the coastal LNG terminals, and there's more coming along, and there seems to be a lot of support for that. And since that first shipment left Kitamat in the summer, we've seen the steady increase of of that space. So it's kind of proved the point. I mean, no one is out there, no one credible anyways out there saying, Oh, it's not a real industry or it's never gonna happen. It has happened, it's creating jobs and revenues that you can you can see in the the economy. Um but uh we'll we'll see how it does. That's in the future. One thing we know is that uh product that the world uses every day, uh over a hundred million barrels of oil every day, and Canada has grown that. Um how does Canada get that to the world if it doesn't have the ability to build a pipeline except to the U.S.? I mean, we've got one pipeline in Vancouver, but uh, how does it get more of it? Because that seems to be where the money is. It's the biggest earner of money for Canada, crude oil. It's the single biggest, most valuable export. So we've got to Double that. How are we going to do that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm laughing because this is this NDP government is very funny to me. Like you've never seen an NDP government be protested with like a blow up of David EB with a LNG pipeline and an oil and gas pipeline outside of UBCM. I thought that was, yeah, he's uh he's got some admirers there. But it was yeah, very funny to see the shift almost. I've never heard an NDP government talk about LNG as much as this government has. And so it's really, really been interesting. We have a problem uh when it comes to an oil and gas pipeline and uh preserving our coasts. It's the one thing that British Columbians, I think, can recognize is critically important to us, and also our coastal First Nations, too. And so that is a really difficult conversation that needs to occur between Alberta and British Columbia in terms of what that looks like for us. Um, Alberta's been having conversations with Doug Ford about an east-west kind of pipeline. And so there needs to be some give and take, but there's some some really large hurdles to um to get over if that's something that is going to be put through this province.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, there's really no point in building an oil pipeline to the East Coast because Europe, the easiest market for that, is using, just like we are in North America, they're they're not growing their their use of oil the way that countries in Asia are. So you want to get the oil to Asia where it's needed and do that, except off the West Coast.
SPEAKER_02:So we're also looking at at our trade relationships now as they are today. And so when we're having a hard time kind of reconciling how we're gonna double our non-US exports, um, there are so many opportunities in our trade relationships east-west for us to strengthen those, build on those. And you saw Prime Minister Mark Carney just do his um his Asia-Pacific tour and really start the conversation with some of those countries that we haven't in a very long time. And we haven't even really capitalized on our EU uh partnerships as well, and leverage those agreements in the way that would facilitate greater trade. And so I'm I'm really hopeful and looking forward to solidifying more of those agreements, and then maybe that doubling of non-US exports over the next 10 years becomes a little bit more clear because we'll have uh new trade agreements to fulfill.
SPEAKER_00:There's so much going on in another area, the First Nations, Indigenous peoples of Canada. You mentioned uh the coastal First Nations, so the Premier can get 15 or so leaders, but there are over 200 First Nations in BC, and they're not all standing there saying don't build a pipeline. There's only, you know, a small number. And those other First Nations have rights too. And I'm I'm just wondering how this federal government is going to deal with the federal issues, and then there's a whole other basket of provincial ones, and we'll come back to that. But but federally speaking, how are they going to provide a way for First Nations to integrate into the economy to achieve the Canadian standard of living, not the indigenous Canadian standard of living, which um I've yet to meet a First Nations person who says they want to be 65th in the world rather than, you know, top 10 like the rest of Canadians?
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Powell I think a recognition, and every time we we speak with First Nations leaders, there's a a real lack of ability and capacity to participate in the projects the way that they want to participate in the projects that are being rolled out. And the capacity that is required and the funding in order to support that capacity, meaningfully participate in those projects, I think is so critical. Um and the timelines around those too. They're also being faced with multiple permits and multiple projects on the same at the same time. We talk a lot about cumulative effects being really a real issue when you've got overlapping projects on your territory. How do you come to terms with the impacts that that's gonna create and have an understanding of where all those pressure points are gonna be while you're reviewing all of these different projects? And so while there is this tension, as you're saying, between different nations and their their objectives, I think it's really important for anybody who wants to put a project through British Columbia to work so closely and at the very beginning with a nation to bring them into the conversation. This is not something you do at the 11th hour. This needs to be day one, pre-day one, where you start thinking about this. And so we've seen some success with projects that have done that well, um, like LMG Canada, that have really come to the table very early on to build those relationships. And it's clear that there is a pathway to uh to work together uh to bring projects forward that create consensus. Um, but that is a lot of work, and um companies coming in that want to do that need to be incredibly respectful of the rights and uh of those nations too. It you can't just drive through a territory and call it a day.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we've seen how that maybe worked a long time ago, but it is simply untenable nowadays. And when it comes to that early engagement, um what what are what are the key things to be doing?
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Powell As we know, every nation is is different, but I think uh building trust at the very beginning is so important. We call it tea and toast, is sitting down and actually having a face-to-face conversation that's not simply about um money and outcomes and employment. It's just getting to know each other and getting to understand what it is. Um understanding each each other's objectives and what we can bring to the table, I think, is so important. It's been um it's been very eye-opening to see how companies from other countries have come into Canada and not really fully understood the relationship building piece of this that is so critical and treated this like a business meeting where they sit down and they have a 30-minute agenda. That's not how this works. And um I'm I'm very hopeful. There's a big education piece that's needed in a lot of cases for this to take place, but this is so critical to the entire process.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we had a lot of foreign companies just exit Canada. And there's also the ones where you don't know if they would have come or not, because they never did. And there's no date, there's no news release issue usually when someone says, you know, we changed our mind, we're not going to invest any money in in Canada. Um it's just we go somewhere else. Um and it it seems like we're in a period of needing to repair the national reputation as a place to invest. Often uh starting with things like interprovincial trade, solving that is maybe a precursor to anything else we've got to do.
SPEAKER_02:One Canadian economy, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:One economy, yeah. That that makes sense to most foreign investors, but we don't have it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it is a real shock, I think, when foreign companies come in and there isn't a plane waiting for them, and someone to help with site selection and a red carpet and someone to white glove all the regulatory burden that occurs in Canada. And that is one thing that I've been having um more conversations about is how do we we can say as much as we want to about attracting foreign direct investment and everything that Canada is doing to invest to grow our capacity and our speed with which we're building these projects. But there does need to be an element of like, okay, we want you here, but this is also how we're gonna support you being here. Um and so it is rolling out the red carpet when these folks get off the plane.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they're they're looking for that. Canada likes to think it's leading the clean innovation race, but there's a lot of evidence that we're not, that companies that start here just get pulled away. We can think of lots of examples. You know, carbon engineering, there's a company started right here in Vancouver with pulling carbon from the sky, and there it is in a solid form. You can sequester it, you can do what you want with it. Where is it now? It got pulled away to Oklahoma to uh work in the oil and gas sector down there. Um, lots of examples. Um at Tirsa Earth Innovations, a company that I co-founded in mining wastewater remediation. It it felt like uh the the most energy we had to expend was dealing with bureaucrats in the licensing office at a university that like the the worst thing that could happen to them would be that we can access and use the patent that we're licensing. We don't want you to do that. Um, you know, you're supposed to be helping us. How are we gonna ever get this stuff from the lab to the marketplace if we've got this sort of bureaucratic mindset? It's it's maddening. And then we had the the shred the buckle of really uh I think there's a lot of questions that got sort of permanently kicked under the carpet. You know, why did shred, well, okay, we'll leave that for someone else, but um there's a a scientific and technology innovation vehicle that so many entrepreneurs, including our company at Tursa Earth, was we were waiting for it, we were budgeting for that, and then it's gone. But it's a new day. So um what's the trend in where we've got government ability to uh stimulate the sort of innovation that will keep the companies we need to be in Canada here in Canada?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the it's such a funny conversation because we always talk about Vancouver being very good at um tech startups, and then they get big enough and they get into their adolescent period and they get some funding and they hit their series A and B, and then they commercialize and they're starting to make some money and then they leave. Yeah. And that's it. And we never see the benefit of the jobs or or the um the bump to the economy that we would like to see. So we're really good incubators here in British Columbia and in Canada. But to your point, yeah, there needs to be a little bit more support around those companies. Um, even in British Columbia, we almost feel like apologetic in a way for being successful, and I would like that to change. Um also just be louder. If you have a good product and you're a great company and you're doing something cool, like if government's not supporting you, be louder. Go to media, talk, like refine your key messages. Maybe you're not saying it correctly, not maybe you're not saying it enough, maybe you're not saying it loud enough. Um be very bullish about how great you are, and then you will get attention. It's um it's so frustrating to me to see these companies leave when maybe all they needed to be was just saying to people and attract some money.
SPEAKER_00:All right, things out of the way. Well, let's follow that. Yeah and see what well I hope that did has that worked for anyone? Uh you don't have to name names, but it sounds like you're getting some success with that method.
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah, in a way he will say, yeah. Behind closed doors, I'm the one who can say when this isn't working and please fix this because this company will leave if you don't.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um but yeah, there's there's no way to say that. That is not uh uh not me going in there. Um but I companies do need to be bullish about what they're good at. Um and so I I get very frustrated sometimes. Even Web Summit came in. How many BC companies were on stage at Web Summit? Like we need to be telling them, like, no, we are on stage and we are putting not an old white man on stage here anymore. We're gonna show the diversity of who is doing the innovation here in British Columbia, um, the type of innovation. It's gonna be a lot of fun, but we just need to get elbows up, still use that, because I think our elbows are back up now as a country. Um to be elbows up and like muscle your way into stuff. It's it's something that we need to be less apologetic about and really bust down those doors and get into the rooms we need to be.
SPEAKER_00:And how about resource communities? Is there anything they can do in this department of uh getting their elbows and their voices up?
SPEAKER_02:I think they're they're doing a fairly good job, but I also want to see people get out of downtown and go into those smaller communities and really understand the challenges that are being faced. Um, just even some of the conversation around temporary foreign workers, too, that's been so focused lately, um, and a prop and a point of tension between the provincial and the federal government. Um, that conversation isn't landing in places where you don't have folks to work in hospitality and you don't have folks to work in the in the hotel rooms. Um, we're all going up north to the Natural Resource Forum, too. There's a a crisis up there when it comes to just those in the hospitality sector. And so, yeah, there's um there's almost a misalignment sometimes with what is talked about and what is reality in these smaller communities.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, well, in the cities, seemingly there's a backlash against immigration that's resulted in the curbing of numbers. But I was in, I think it was Smithers recently. I went into the hotel. There's a young fellow, he's from I I learned South Asia from India, and he's working there, and I was staying there for a week, passed by every day, said hi. And then I went down to the 7-Eleven to fill my gas tank and get a coffee later that day. And he he's behind the counter at the 7-Eleven. He's working two jobs, seven days a week. He's come to Canada to get ahead and work hard and be rewarded. And now these towns, uh the complaint that we're hearing from the resource towns is is not, oh, there's too many immigrants here. It's that there's no people here to do the jobs. And why can't we have people who have a a work ethic and a hunger to get ahead be able to come? Instead, they're they're seeing a fall-off in in who's available to take jobs.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like no ton of these major projects that we're contemplating putting through British Columbia are not in downtown Vancouver. No. They're in places where we need people to support the development of these major projects. And again, it's not just the shovels in the ground, it's everything else that goes around that. It's the innovation, um, but it's also somebody pouring your coffee at the 7-Eleven. Like this, these are real challenges. And so I really am pushing back on thinking about um, yeah, this national project list and these major projects and trade-enabling infrastructure as like very singular type of things. We need to step back and zoom out a little bit more in terms of how it's going to grow our economy and all the ways that all these different industries can plug into that and support.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um just coming back to innovation and and where it occurs, uh, we we know that there's lots of it in the cities because you can see companies in the industrial parks and in the towers. There's a company there with maybe their names on the tower. But a lot of that is outside where the resource regions are. And you'll find some pretty innovative companies spread all over the place, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, certainly. I think for a long time BC has tried to try to make Kelowna almost like this tech hub. It never quite took off. Abbotsford also tried, I think Gavin Dee was in charge of like kind of the Abbotsford innovation uh piece for a little while, too. And there are a lot of opportunities outside of the downtown core. Again, it comes to people and bringing the people that are that have that technical ability to those places sometimes. But there's a lot more that we can be doing to diversify um that workforce outside of the downtown core. And the big companies coming in, like the AWSs and the SAPs, like they spur so much talent development. Those people don't come to those companies, take uh high-paying salaries, and then just stay there for the next 30 years. They'll go and do a spin-off or they'll go into a smaller tech startup and and bring their expertise in. And so when we're we're seeing these towers downtown with the names on them, I don't think people should be adverse to that and see these like these monolithic companies that are downtown. Like they spur a lot of talent development and then economic growth in the region and like in other regions too. And uh, so yeah, I think we just need to zoom out a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think it will be worth doing into the bigger zones, but let's do the opposite and zoom in to municipal politics. We're now in the election year prior to the 2026 British Columbia municipal elections. There's hundreds of uh communities where the vote will occur, and it's getting kind of interesting in the big cities in you know, Surrey, Vancouver. I'm just wondering, Nicole, the connection between what's happening in provincial government, in federal government, and then how that's being reflected in, you know, local, local city. What are the big trends to watch?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, municipalities are facing a lot. A lot has been downloaded to them for them to figure out and with not a lot of funding to do that, figuring out. Um and so I think municipalities kind of have to pick a couple priorities and run with them hard. People have come out of the gate already saying they're running for mayor or they're um they're running for council. Um, and so the campaigns are on in a really earnest way. Here in Vancouver, it's going to be very exciting. I think there are some very clear choices for some pragmatic people that would do a really good job that have the experience, in my opinion. Um but uh the the intersection between the provincial and the federal, too. We might also have another federal election or another municipal or another provincial election in this timeline, too. Like we might be in a scenario next year, and I need to knock on wood for this, that it doesn't happen where we have an election at every single level of government. And this makes me tired thinking about it, because I'm still tired from the last one. But um, this could be a chaos scenario this year where we are doing three elections uh concurrently.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a lot of phone banks, a lot of doors to knock. Yeah, I'm gonna wear different shoes if we're gonna do so. So is it getting harder to get people to come to the door when you're knocking on doors?
SPEAKER_02:We're gonna get very nerdy here for a minute as we get into uh campaign strategy. But yeah, like your open rate is not really great on doors. Um phone banks need to be cleaned pretty much constantly in order to make sure that the contact information is up to date. Uh almost in every jurisdiction except for Saskatchewan, where you can bias ASTEL numbers, you don't have access to anybody's cell phone numbers. And so it's really difficult to reach voters. And so the door knocking is incredibly important. Um, and the conversations you have on the doors. I think Canadians expect to have that conversation on the door. And I've heard from many voters like, well, I didn't hear from this candidate and they didn't show up and knock on my door, so I don't trust them, and I didn't have that conversation. So it's it takes a lot of work, an incredible amount of work by all of our candidates from every party to go out there and do that. Um but luckily we're in BC where it doesn't really snow most of the time in the lower mainland. So we uh we get away with it a bit more. But I spent a lot of time knocking doors in uh southern Alberta, northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, southern Saskatchewan, Manitoba, so and places where we've got like minus 40 and 10 feet of snow.
SPEAKER_00:So if we have an election cycle where all three, a trifecta, and it's at a time when we have unprecedented public support really across Canada. Maybe Quebec's the outlier in not having as much support, but for major projects to get built. Um, do you think that affects what the offering is that that candidates are willing to put, you know, into their campaign literature?
SPEAKER_02:Uh I I challenge you on the Quebec piece. I think Quebec's on board with the major projects. Well, that's good news then.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um I think, yeah, Alberta may have eclipsed. Quebec is the whiniest province in uh in the country. But I'll get a hate mail for that one. But um yeah, it just depends on the way the wind is blowing with the polls. We say politics follows the polls, and so it's still a little early to craft that narrative, I think, for candidates. But when we're looking at at polls these days, like affordability is still number one and number two issue for Canadians. We're still not really feeling that economic growth. We've got interest rates coming down, and that is helping a little bit, but we're not really seeing the money back in our bank accounts. And so that's reflective in um some of the polls that we've recently seen. Um, but I do think there will be, and I'm saying this now a year out, so we'll play this in a year, and I might be entirely wrong, but we are looking for stability, but we're looking for solutions. Um, it's hard to um unless things are really going off the rails across the country and we're kind of sliding backwards, it's hard to imagine Canadians um really pivoting in a big way and putting their trust in another party unless things are really going off the rails. We like we're a little bit safe here in Canada.
SPEAKER_00:It's been more than six months since the federal election. And um for a lot of this time, the the uh the question on a lot of minds is okay, all the stuff you're promising, when are you gonna deliver? How will we know whether whether Canadians believe that there is at least some degree of delivery that's been accomplished now?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's a great question because we're even seeing this reflected in the polls where Canadians still really trust this prime minister, but you're seeing the polling between the conservatives and the liberals narrow a little bit. So I think the last poll out probably had them four or five points apart. Um, but the preferred prime minister was still overwhelmingly Mark Carney. Um but there is a time where Canadians will kind of demand results. There's a general understanding that the US can dynamic has been very challenging and has um taken up a lot of space in Canadians' minds. Um, but there will need to be some results. We're coming up uh in the spring on kind of Kuzma needing to be renegotiated, and that will be a huge inflection point, I think, for Canadians, where we are going to expect to see some movement and some results. It's um we've all just been waking up to the tweets, uh, and it changes day by day. And I think the the elbows-up approach that we're seeing our our premiers come at the US with is um is now being met with uh with a lot of support because we have not seen uh movement on the trade file yet.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm just curious to know, I mean, you're working professional, you you go to work every day. Are we going back to the office as a country?
SPEAKER_02:Oh god, no. Please no. God. I I uh I've got a three-year-old at home, so I am very biased in the uh in my approach to this is like the less time in the office, the better, so that I can be at home more with my little guy. Um but it's funny because it depends on who you talk to and what demographic uh you're talking to, you'll get a different result when you're asking this question. I think there's still a big push for anybody that finds the flexibility of working from home really attractive. And even when I'm hiring, too, that's probably the number one or number two question I get from uh candidates is what is the balance, the work from home policy like? And so I don't think it's going anywhere. And companies who push back and go back to five days a week in the office, I think will have a hard time with recruitment.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell For a long time in Canada, there's been this debate that would occasionally pop up on the stereotype of Canada as the saying goes, hewers of wood and haulers of water, as a kind of, you know, throwaway uh a denigrating phrase for the cringe that that can be associated with the old economy. I think there's even a group called New Economy, and I I've actually looked up in the economic uh journals and departments of economics uh in the English-speaking world. There isn't anyone who's actually an economist who thinks there's a new economy, but um there there is seemingly this popular illusion that there is a pivot to this Shangri-La state of a new economy. What do you think is the source of a belief that there is a new economy around the corner?
SPEAKER_02:The fact that AI is gonna do all of our jobs for us and we'll just live in this utopia where our uh our Chat GPT does all of our tasks for us. We play golf. And we play golf, and we yeah, we return to this like beautiful life where we all garden and like live on the island. Uh we can dream. That would be fine. But yeah, I think that's probably the the genesis for a lot of this, is just how AI is really gonna transform um multiple sectors. I feel like you and I will be fine. Uh certainly in like the public affairs space where relationships matter so, so much. Um, I think that uh yeah, it's just gonna be an interesting time. I don't know if I want to use all that answer to that.
SPEAKER_00:Now you've got a young child or children at home.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So it's a few years before you're having the kind of conversations I'm having now with my son who's at university. Yeah. And I'm I'm seeing the same news as everyone else. I mean, it's a bit of a concerning time for choosing a career uh from the point of view of your, you know, the the clients and the the uh you know political policy development there you're you're so immersed in. What what what do you think are the risks of there being a you know collapse in the traditional ways of earning a living that we've been so used to because of AI?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I really want to nerd out on the post-secondary sector for a little bit on this uh on this question. It's something that I'm I'm incredibly close to. Um there are some major changes that are required. I think um if and I have this conversation a lot in policy, but if we can no longer look uh at a parent and say, this is the job that your child is gonna get when they earn this degree, if there's no tie between those two things, that program probably shouldn't exist anymore. And so I feel like it's we're at this really critical point for the post-secondary sector. Obviously, they've been decimated by the international students being entirely culled from from their from their model, from their finance model. And a lot of them are facing closures and debt. And so this is really like a come to Jesus moment for the entire sector where they're trying to determine um what makes the most sense to provide for programming, where the workforce needs are gonna be. We sent so many kids to go code and learn coding um just like five years ago. That's no longer needed with AI now. And so the workforce is changing rapidly and the needs are changing rapidly, and they need to be tied together in a greater way to reflect that change. It takes a really long time to stand up a program um to get uh a dean and launch that program and recruit and roll it out, but there needs to be um a way for us to be a little bit more nimble with how we're creating um programs that lead directly to jobs that will grow our economy. I could talk about this all day because I I have a real problem with that.
SPEAKER_00:We were both at an event, uh a live event with people in the actual room. And uh it was the Journalism Awards right in in BC. It was a great night, the Websters. I love supporting that, love going to it. I I've been uh nominated part of a team. I've been there in in management when I was in newsroom management, but also the last couple of years as a sponsor of it. So I've seen uh the Websters from many different sides. I've been a judge but of the national newspaper awards, so a lot of commitment to find out you know what's the best journalism being done. But here's the thing that I think stole the show there. It didn't come until the end of the evening, and we didn't know it was coming. And those students from BCIT.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Wasn't that amazing?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it was really heartening to see um young people in the journalism.
SPEAKER_00:Here we are at the Websters. I know you had to leave early because uh you had things to do, but I stayed to the end, and the um next to last, I think it was award of the evening was to this group of students from BCIT. This I think the whole room, like a thousand people, were just amazed by what followed. So that the the award was for um documentary uh feature, and it was this awful story of this woman with Down syndrome who died in care in her 50s, and you know, someone had messed things up, and that's why. And the the the story that was told in this nomination, you know, explained how that happened. And then the other nominations were were read, and those were all from professional newsrooms, working journalists, probably been in it for a few years, but the one that won was the student piece, the one about the woman who died in care. And these uh these young women journalists studying at BCIT and their great broadcast program came up, and they were just, I think the after many years in a field that has had, even to now, just a continuing decline and laughs all the time, it's always a bad news story. Here's some effervescent, uh, just absolutely gobsmacked uh gals come up to get their award. And I think it gave everyone a little bit of hope that there is, you know, a future in telling stories and making a difference through the work you do if you're going into journalism, but other things too. Um and in public affairs, do you do you feel that the erosion of of uh journalism has made it harder to get things across to the public?
SPEAKER_02:And for folks to tell their stories. Like the absolute decimation of new newsrooms has been really, really difficult and the consolidation of papers. But um, I was actually at a Save Our Tri-Cities news event uh a couple weeks ago, too, where this was like so critical. And I live in Port Moody, so this was like something I read every single morning. So um, yeah, in the public affairs space, it is very loud and it's very difficult, and even with government to get your message through, and you need to be very tactical about how you're delivering that message, who you're delivering to. Um, we are lucky enough to have Hannah Tibodeau on our team who came from the national. And so um, we work really closely with Hannah and our entire comms team to help really craft um messaging that is a little bit copy-paste for these reporters. And we try to make it as easy as possible because these newsrooms are so small and deadlines are so tight. Um, and so a lot of the work that we're doing with our with our clients is to make sure that we are making the reporter's job as easy as possible to tell an interesting story that grabs a headline, that grabs attention, that tells a story in an interesting way, that comes with visuals and video and uh uh somebody to talk to in person about this to ask more questions and make themselves available. So, yeah, how we we've done it is a little bit different. You can no longer just put a news release on the wire and call it a day and hope that it makes the news. You have to do a lot more work these days to make sure that your story's placed. And that's the same with government too. They have so many inputs all day, every day, that in order to make your story and your company rise to the top, you really need to do that legwork as well.
SPEAKER_00:Nicole Bressard, thanks so much for coming to Power Struggle. It's been a far-ranging, unusually so range of topics that we've covered. I really appreciate that you that you could take the time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I really enjoy this. And I did not swear as much as I thought I would today. Usually at the top of these things, we have to do a disclaimer that this is like a an earmuffs only kind of session, but you really didn't draw it out of me today. I didn't get too angry about anything. So talk to me about the Vancouver Liberals, then maybe we'll see.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, all right. We'll save that for next time.
SPEAKER_02:That's all right.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks.
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